Julia DrakeReseñas

I expected more about discovering the shipwreck, because that's what the synopsis emphasized (or so I thought). But it was mostly about Violet discovering herself. Which is fine... but there could've been more shipwreck.

4.5, I finished this book a few days ago and I keep coming back to it, I loved this story so much. I adore Ms. Drake's writing style, I can't wait for her to write more.

3.5 Stars

CW: Attempted suicide, depression, drinking, sexual content.

This is a pretty raw and poetically written book about a girl dealing with a family on the brink of collapse. Her brother’s suicide attempt and her own ‘year of wild’ result in her being sent to live with her uncle in a small coastal community. This is where Violet believes the origins of her family's misery began. She believes a shipwreck in which her great great great grandmother was the lone survivor has put her family under a curse. The missing and broken ship come to symbolise the missing and broken parts of Violet’s life. She holds onto hope that finding the wreck will heal her wounds. I thought the love story was well done and I felt invested in the relationships Violet built. I love re-imaginings so really enjoyed the fresh new take on the Twelfth Night. One of my favourite Shakespeare plays. A lovely book.

YA is definitely not my favorite genre. There were a few parts in this book that were not written in that typical YA way and I absolutely loved those sections. Probably the one thing that kept me reading all the way to the end. If you typically like YA you will probably like this book.

This was a book that is very character driven. I really enjoyed the author’s voice, and Violet was a fun main character to spend time with. Violet grew up in NYC and perhaps grew up a bit too quickly working on Broadway. Her brother Sam attempts suicide, and she’s sent to stay with her uncle for the summer in coastal Maine, where their family legend says that their great-great grandmother was shipwrecked and managed to survive, getting back to shore and founding the town. Mystery. Romance. Tragedy. Humor.

With newfound friends and another shipwreck enthusiast, they search for the lost wreck. The characters and backstories are interesting, from main characters to secondary players, and everything about this world is richly drawn. At its heart, this is a story of family, of a bond between brother and sister, fractured perhaps beyond repair, and trying to mend itself again, and watching that evolve was a beautiful thing. It’s the perfect read if you’re in the mood for a slow build more literary tale. Thoroughly enjoyed.

Trigger Warnings: suicide, depression

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.

Sixteen year old Violet was suspended from school for smoking pot; her younger brother Sam attempted suicide. They need help. To try and fix things, their parents ship Violet off to Maine to spend the summer with Uncle Toby, and Sam off to a recovery center in Vermont. The town of Lyric is where Violet and Sam spent many summers as kids and is named after a ship that wrecked off of the coast of Maine. Violet and Sam's great-great-great grand mother was the sole survivor of the shipwreck. As children, Violet and Sam were fascinated with the story of the shipwreck and were determined to discover it. Violet, with a history of meaningless one night stands and drug use, surprisingly finds soul mates in Lyric who care about her and share her interest in finding the shipwreck. Violet writes to Sam letting him know that she and her friends are planning to find the shipwreck. Sam escapes from his recovery center to join Violet in her quest to find the shipwreck. Although Violet and Sam come almost perish from hypothermia, the journey to find the shipwreck is a healing process as well as a lesson in self discovery. The last true poets of the sea are in the game for adventure, the concept of the journey is the treasure.

The Last True Poets of the Sea is evidently a retelling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which means nothing to me, because I’ve never read Twelfth Night. Luckily, it was still enjoyable! Drake modernizes the tale so thoroughly that previous knowledge is not required. That alone is impressive; even better is that she somehow does this while also maintaining an appreciation for the stage. Performance of all kinds - theatrical, the ways we pretend to be who we’re not in our everyday lives - lies, along with shipwrecks, at the thematic heart of the book. It fits perfectly with the story’s origins.

Some more good: The writing is lovely. It deals frankly with mental illness. The climax - no spoilers - is breathtaking. The love interest is the first character named Liv I’ve ever read - finally, the representation I’ve been waiting for. I love a good book about healing, one where everything isn’t “fixed” but that suggests a path forward, the beginning of a difficult but achievable process. Everyone in this book is at least a little bit hurt, and their stumbling toward the light is rendered both compassionately and, for the most part, realistically. I do think it’s a bit too long, that it occasionally over-explains - for example, it takes a long time to wrap up after the climactic scene, and even doubles back to unpack it. I wish Drake would’ve had the confidence to let the climax - weird, dreamlike, powerful - stand on its own. I also don’t quite buy that no one in Lyric would have tried to find the shipwreck before Liv and Violet came around. Drake is clearly trying to work in a theme there: Liv says that the town is obsessed with a romantic misrepresentation of its founders, so much so that they refuse to actually research them in fear of finding uncomfortable truths. Okay, fair enough, that’s why no one has bothered to delve too deeply into Violet’s ancestors’ marriage. But what does the ship itself have to do with that? I don’t believe that people wouldn’t seek it out because seeing it would remind them of tragedy. We as a species both romanticized and yearned to see the Titanic up close. People used to get married there, on submarines. The physical fact of a shipwreck doesn’t stop us from ignoring the tragedy behind it - we often rob historical suffering of its horror by gawking uncritically at the empty shells it leaves behind (see: plantation tours). I get the theme, but it doesn’t really line up with how people actually act, which I think weakens it.

Anyway. This book was quite good! A little overlong, a little shaky, but overall a nice, moving read, clearly lovingly crafted. Obviously I have some quibbles, and sometimes quibbles can turn into tangents, and also at two points in this book a character calls Liv “Livi” only it’s spelled “Livvy,” what’s up with that?

I love a pretty cover, and I happily found substance behind that in YA debut, The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake. In typical YA fashion, Drakes throws a lot against the wall to see what sticks: unrequited love, LGBTQ themes, an eating disorder, a dead sibling, a near-drowning, and so much more. Violet has been sent to her uncle’s house in Maine for the summer after a wild year of drugs, sex and getting in trouble in New York City that culminated in her brother’s suicide attempt. There she tries to reinvent herself, make friends and fix her family relationships. Lots of normal YA themes, but well written with funny moments, and some interesting historical research and a shipwreck thrown in. Readers of Becky Albertalli, A.S. King and other contemporary YA writers will enjoy this new author.

A cute if fairly unbelievable story. The main themes of being torn between two worlds while simultaneously riding the fence of adolescence and maturity is well-executed. The use of imagery and word play is lively and compelling. The plot itself though... feels sadly intangible and artificial. I actually think the story might feel more realistic if the locale was shifted from New England to Southern California or the Hamptons. Though Violet's ennui and devil may care personality on the surface look fairly universal, her actual behavior harkens moreso to a 1%er born and bred in West Hollywood than to a young woman riding the high of a childhood career on Broadway (and to suggest that those might look similar is farcical). Violet's often Woolf-esque observations about the terrors of the mundane world simply don't fit inside of the head of a party girl and the explanation for how they arrived there is hard to swallow. By the time the reader is finally presented with the love interest, I feel like I'd already given up on Violet. Having been exposed to and subsequently rejected terrific role model after terrific role model, no romantic seaside summer boi interlude is going to be transformative enough to hone Lydia Bennet into Nancy Drew as Drake would have as believe.

This book was especially moving and interesting for a YA novel. I loved the main character, loved her relationship with her brother, and loved that the central romance didn't magically solve all problems—by the end of the novel, it was clear that all problems weren't even permanently solved, because some issues actually require constant effort. At times the plot maybe tried to cleave too closely to the Twelth Night association, and things got a little strained, but overall it was quite beautiful.½

It is June and sixteen year old Violet's younger brother by a year, Sam, has tried to commit suicide by downing a bottle of Tylenol. Sam is shipped off to a rehab center in Vermont and Violet is sent to her ancestral home in Maine. Her great great great grandmother, Felicity, survived a shipwreck and landed in what is now Lyric, Maine and started said town. At first Violet thinks it's punishment. So she realizes she likes her Uncle Toby. She thinks that finding the carcass of the shipwreck might make everything OK between herself and her brother.

She befriends of group of 4: Felix and Mariah who are great friends Orion and Liv, the former loving the latter and the latter wanting to be only friends. Violet, for the past year, has been a flirt and more and so she begins flirting with the beautiful eyebrow Orion. But she soon realizes that she's totally attracted to Liv. Life in Lyric is totally new to her and it takes a while to realize she has friends now. It also takes a while to realize that finding the wreck is not going to smooth her relationship with Sam, but Liv is a truther who wants to know what really happened.

The Last True Poets of the Sea is a wonderful coming of age story. The group of 5 friends are great. The story is unusual. Violet's family dynamics rings true. It is well worth reading. A joy.

P.S. About 2/3 of the way through I had to go to the end to see if there is a happy or at least satisfying ending. You might have to do that oo.½

After her brother's suicide attempt, Violet is sent to her family's ancestral home in Lyric, Maine. The small town couldn't be different than NYC where her family lives now, but in Lyric, everyone knows her and her family history - her great, great, great, great grandmother survived a shipwreck to become one of the town's founders. Now Violet, with new friends, is searching for the location of the shipwreck, and trying to rebuild herself.